The Latest Penny Stock Promotion: This One is Scary!!!

Every day, I receive dozens of spam emails in some of my varied email accounts. They are usually promoting some stock that trades anywhere from a penny to a dollar, and sometimes even less than a penny!

They all seem to have the same style, and similar headline like "This one is on the move" or "This stock will make you rich." Most (if not all) of these seem to be pump-and-dump schemes.
However, I just received a new one today, that kind of scares me. Check it out. The subject line in the email is:

My new pick could literally DOUBLE YOUR MONEY OR MORE! 
OK, now read the content of the message:

Apple (Nasdaq:A-A-P-L) has shown its latter-day iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C, which have not affected the investors. Nevertheless, we got to hear about a secret newly-designed product, which is developed in Cupertino (the Headquarter of Apple). Everyone will have interest in this newcomer (throughout a year, it will be put in use by all the people). Today, it's high time to get hold of the Apple's stocks. These securities will go up in price very soon.

Has Apple (AAPL) fallen to the level (figuratively) of a penny stock and a pump-and-dump?

Disclosure: Author owns AAPL.

The Stock Market Book That Gave Me Nightmares for 8 Weeks

Several years ago, I read the non-fiction autobiography called The Wolf of Wall Street by Jordan Belfort. At the time, I was doing a lot of reviews of a lot of books, but I held off on this one because the book gave me nightmares for eight weeks (especially one of the hospital scenes). I didn't want anyone else to get nightmares at the time. But now that the book is going to be made into a movie directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, I think it's OK to tell others about this book and let them have eight weeks of nightmares, if they choose to read it. Be forewarned! (BTW, I actually enjoyed the book in spite of my nightmares. More about that shortly.)

This is probably the most disturbing book I've ever read, not just of investment books but of all books. So what could be so disturbing about a guy who was involved with investments and the stock market? The book is about a guy who started up a pump-and-dump stock brokerage firm, whereby he would buy up a bunch of low priced and penny stocks and have the brokers foist the stocks on the unsuspecting public at much higher prices. He ended up making multi-millions of dollars and became very wealthy. Sound boring? Let me give you a Twitter style version of what it's really about (without doing too many spoilers):

huge amounts of cocaine

four prostitutes with one guy

excessive adultery, of course

taping large wads of cash to a girl's body so it can get through customs to be laundered

throwing little people through the office

walking through the halls of a hospital with a hypodermic hanging out of buttocks (this was not the hospital scene that gave me nightmares)

pushing a guy out a window from a very high building

extreme sex

the yacht that almost sank

expensive cars and private jets

enormous amounts of money

extremely powerful Quaaludes

helicopter crashes

So the above is a list of the reasons why you might want to read it.

I did like reading the book for a couple reasons. First, it gave an extremely close-up view of the inside world of the pump-and-dump brokerage industry and the people involved in it. Second, many parts of the book were very humorous.

The one drawback I found about the book was the in the first chapter, Belfort starts out being "lower than pond scum." In the next chapter, he is wealthy and successful with his own helicopter and pilot. I would like to have seen more on how he made it from the bottom to the top. Maybe he is saving that for another book.

Anyway, if you are offended by lots of dirty words, then don't read The Wolf of Wall Street. If you are offended by any of the items on the list above, don't read The Wolf of Wall Street. Otherwise, if you want an eye-opener on the seamy seedy side of Wall Street, then read The Wolf of Wall Street.